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Gold (III) cyclometalated based amphiphiles in aqueous media have been revealed with excellent supramolecular transformations to external stimuli to open new pathways for soft functional material fabrications. Herein, we report a new chiral cyclometalated gold (III) amphiphile (GA) assembling into lamellar nanostructures in aqueous media confirmed with transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Counterion exchange with D‐, L‐, or racemic‐camphorsulfonates features the significant supramolecular helicity enhancements, enabling transformations of GA from lamellar structure to vesicles and to nanotubes with multi‐equivalents of counterion. The limited cytotoxicity of GA in aqueous media exhibits good biocompatibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The front cover picture illustrates chiral gold (III) amphiphiles assembling into tubular supramolecular structures in aqueous media through a counterion controlled pathway. The nanostructures were further demonstrated to have good cytocompatibility in aqueous media. Cover designed by Mr. Qian Wang. More information can be found in the Research Article by Man‐Kin Wong, Franco King‐Chi Leung, and co‐workers...By Aries Kwok‐Heung Chan; Ming‐Hin Chau; Yikun Ren; Jia‐Jun Jiang; Man‐Kin Wong and Franco King‐Chi LeungReported by Author; Author; Author; Author; Author; Author [Extracted from the article]

Molecular motor amphiphiles have already been widely attempted for dynamic nanosystems across multiple length‐scale for developments of small functional materials, including controlling macroscopic foam properties, amplifying motion as artificial molecular muscles, and serving as extracellular matrix mimicking cell scaffolds. However, limiting examples of bola‐type molecular motor amphiphiles are considered for constructing macroscopic biomaterials. Herein, this work presents the designed two second generation molecular motor amphiphiles, motor bola‐amphiphiles (MBAs). Aside from the photoinduced motor rotation of MBAs achieved in both organic and aqueous media, the rate of recovering thermal helix inversion step can be controlled by the rotor part with different steric hindrances. Dynamic assembled structures of MBAs are observed under (cryo)‐transmission electron microscopy (TEM). This dynamicity assists MBAs in further assembling as macroscopic soft scaffolds by applying a shear‐flow method. Upon photoirradiation, the phototropic bending function of MBA scaffolds is observed, demonstrating the amplification of molecular motion into macroscopic phototropic bending functions at the macroscopic length‐scale. Since MBAs are confirmed with low cytotoxicity, human bone marrow‐derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBM‐MSCs) can grow on the surface of MBA scaffolds. These results clearly demonstrate the concept of designing MBAs for developing photoresponsive dynamic functional materials to create new‐generation soft robotic systems and cell‐material interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Traditionally, the morphologies of the dispersed phase in Polycarbonate (PC)/poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) (SAN) blends were strongly influenced if AN content in SAN changed significantly even under constant processing conditions. This would hinder the pure research intended to study the effect of the refractive index difference between the polymer host and the polymeric dispersed particles on the optical properties tough. Therefore, we respectively prepared different PC/SAN light diffusion sheets with four types of SAN containing different AN content ranging just from 20 to 25 wt %, a narrow range that sufficiently ensures the relatively stable morphology of different SAN in PC matrix. The results suggest that the refractive index of SAN increases with an decreasing AN content, thus narrowing the refractive index difference between PC and SAN and producing PC/SAN(70/30) light diffusion sheets with an increasing transmittance and decreasing haze. The interesting phenomenon is further analyzed using Mie scattering theory. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 44156. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]